Visual Thinking
Note: This topic was mentioned during the call but not discussed in depth.
Victoria (Spain) and Gabriele G are both engaged with visual thinking as a practice for organizing and expressing ideas.
Victoria's Practice
Victoria managed the collaborative Excalidraw board throughout the call, demonstrating visual thinking in action:
"Let's open as many questions as possible. So if instead of saying, 'education closes curiosity,' we state it as a question: 'Does education close?' Then we will have more things to work with."
Key principles:
- Visual organization of concepts
- Keeping questions open rather than closing with answers
- Collaborative sense-making
- Non-linear exploration
Connection to Brain Evolution
Victoria connected visual thinking to human evolution:
"Writing and drawing were the first externalizations of the brain humans practiced, and what enabled our intellectual evolution"
This suggests:
- Visual thinking is fundamental to human cognition
- Externalizing thought (through drawing/writing) enables new levels of thinking
- Visual representation isn't just communication but thinking tool
Gabriele's Experience
Gabriele met Victoria through "an online workshop on Visual thinking" and brought that lens to the curiosity discussion.
Gabriele's struggle with "anxiety/poverty to ask question when you have complete freedom" might be helped by visual thinking:
- Drawing out vague ideas
- Mapping question territories visually
- Seeing connections between half-formed thoughts
Visual Tools for Curiosity
The Excalidraw board enabled:
- Spatial organization - related ideas near each other
- Simultaneous viewing - see whole landscape at once
- Multiple contributors - collective intelligence
- Iterative development - build on others' additions
- Preserving openness - questions remain visible
Benefits for Curiosity
Visual thinking might support curiosity by:
- Making connections visible
- Allowing non-sequential exploration
- Creating shared mental models
- Reducing cognitive load (externalized memory)
- Enabling pattern recognition
- Supporting divergent thinking
Relationship to Other Tools
Visual thinking complements:
- Writing and Thinking - both externalize thought
- DSRP Theory - visualizing distinctions, systems, relationships, perspectives
- Question Formulation Technique - mapping question territories
- Playing Games Model - diagramming interaction patterns
The Workshop Context
That Victoria and Gabriele connected through a visual thinking workshop suggests:
- Growing community of practice
- Methods being taught and shared
- Connection to Education and Curiosity
- Tools for Metacognition
Related Themes
- Excalidraw
- Writing and Thinking
- Tools and Frameworks for Cultivating Curiosity
- Collective Sense-Making